


Covenant

by elynross



Category: The People - Zenna Henderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-19
Updated: 2006-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:23:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elynross/pseuds/elynross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melodye learns that sometimes the magic comes back. And thank you to Isis, for letting me revisit a bit of my childhood!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Covenant

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to Arduinna, Mary Crawford, and shalott, for hand-holding and most excellent beta!
> 
> Written for Isis

 

 

Melodye chose to walk up the hillside, rather than be lifted, and she smiled as she watched the children in the air around her, playing a kind of tag unique to the People. She'd suggested it, having learned of it from Karen, a way for children to develop skills stunted by the years of hiding and self-imposed oppression. A couple of the older ones, who were better with the inanimate lift, were bringing along the picnic baskets and blankets to sit on, and when they reached the picnic area, she asked Jenny to platt the twishers to let the baskets down gently.

It was a gorgeous spring day, and Melodye had decided that the whole school needed more fresh air, and a chance to really let loose and practice their lifting and reaching for things, playing with the sunshine, in a place well-protected from prying eyes. The older People of Bendo were still nervous of such things, although they'd relaxed since Melodye had brought them back together with the People of Cougar Canyon. They now saw that it was possible to embrace their heritage without persecution, if they were careful. Careful, but not fearful. And the children thrived under a firm hand that knew of their Gifts, with a teacher who stayed longer than a few months, a year at the outside, who didn't have a nervous collapse when a child inadvertently lifted, instead of walking across the ground. Much like Cougar Canyon before Valancy's arrival, Bendo had devastated a series of teachers who had left quickly, often by ambulance. It therefore had developed an alarming reputation with the placement bureau until Melodye took the job no one else wanted, and found her magic again.

"How did you know to recognize us, Miss Melodye?" The impertinent question came from Archie, one of her bolder boys, who'd taken to freedom like a bird to the air. If Karen was right, he looked to be a fine Sorter some day, but so far he'd yet to learn when he should, and when he shouldn't.

She raised one eyebrow and regarded him silently until he had the grace to blush and apologize. "There, then, I know you won't do it again," she said, smiling. "Let's get the food put out and passed round, and I'll tell you a little story. It will have to be the old-fashioned way -- or Earth-fashioned way, I guess -- but I think I can do that."

* * *

The day I arrived at Arizona State Teachers College, Tempe was experiencing one of August's infrequent but spectacular rainstorms, and everything was oppressively dismal and gray. The sharp flashes of lightning spiraling through the dark sky echoed my mood, bright splinters of excitement shivering through my weary nervousness. I'd spent all day going back and forth between "I won't see anyone until Christmas" and "I'm _never_ going back to that dull, dismal place!" One minute all I wanted to do was stop the bus, turn around, and head for home, the next I was peering out the bus windows, trying to take in everything I could of the town that was now my home, for a while, at least. It had been a long trip all on my own, away from everything I knew, to a much larger place with many more people who were dashing in and out of buildings, jackets pulled tight and umbrellas up against the pouring rain, trying to avoid the rapidly rising water in the streets.

One day away from home, and already I was so homesick I could hardly stand it, and it made no sense, as I'd been ready to leave since the day it occurred to me I could, that there was a whole _world_ out there, a world where I might find something to match the hopes and dreams that I'd been feeding myself on since I was a child. It had left me all turned around and upside-down in my head, a little headachy and a lot tired.

I took the long way to my dorm, after checking in with the registrar, trying to figure out where my classes would be, locating the library, trying to imagine this as my home for the next several years. By the time I reached my assigned room, I was dripping wet and exhausted, and yet my footsteps slowed as I climbed the stairs, and I knew that I'd been delaying the moment of meeting my new roommate, who had already checked in, according to the office. As I reached out for the door knob, a small crash and an exclamation echoed from inside, and I stopped with my hand on the door.

I'd barely had time to think about moving on when the door opened to a smiling face and laughing voice saying, "Hello, you must be Melodye! I'm Karen, your roommate!" And then a hand was on my arm, firmly pulling me inside, and before I knew it, I was out of my wet coat, with a towel for my hair and a cup of hot tea in my hands. And as Karen managed my body, I felt as if she also soothed my mind, until I ended up sitting on the edge of an unmade bed much more relaxed in both than I had been just minutes before. It was an odd feeling, as if something had taken all the turned around, upside-down anxiety and turned it all right side 'round again. It was amazing what a good cup of tea and a clean, dry towel could do for your spirits!

The whole time, Karen chatted in a pleasant, warm voice, little inconsequential comments about the campus and classes, where I could find the bathrooms and the cafeteria, and her own trip, apparently accompanied by her whole family. Though I didn't contribute much, by the time Karen sat down across from me on her own bed, I felt like I'd known her for years. My fears and apprehensions almost seemed to melt away under her kind eyes and happy face, and well-refreshed, I looked around me to see where I'd be situated for the year.

The room wasn't large, but Karen had carefully kept to her half of it, and that half was as warm and cheerful as Karen herself, bright with color and soft textures that were a good start on making the whole room cozy and welcoming. She'd taken the higher shelves available, and already had a few books and odds and ends up where she'd have to climb a chair to get to them.

"Are you sure you don't want at least one of these lower shelves?" I asked. Some of the books up on top of the bookshelves seemed rather precarious, and difficult to reach.

Karen smiled. "That's nice of you, but no, I'm fine with the upper ones!"

I hadn't brought much with me, so after I changed into dry clothes, hanging up my wet dress to dry on a line Karen showed me in the laundry room, it didn't take me long to get everything situated. "Are they serving dinner tonight?" I asked, trusting that Karen would know the answer.

"Yes! Not a large meal, since classes haven't officially started yet, but they're supposed to have some soup and sandwiches available -- in fact, they should be putting it out about now. Are you ready to eat? If not, we can go a bit later to a nearby cafe, if you'd like."

I thought that I probably shouldn't start school off spending money on food when I didn't need to, so we got ready to go to the cafeteria. Just as we were leaving the room, Karen stopped.

"Oh, I forgot my sweater!" she said, and ducked back in the room. I caught the door before it shut, and then I was distracted by smiling at a girl that passed by. When I glanced back in the room, I saw Karen catch up her sweater, then turn for the door. For a second I could swear that the sweater had moved _up_ into Karen's outstretched hand. I decided I must be more tired than I'd thought, and the thought of warm soup and sandwiches was even more appetizing.

"Ready! Shall we brave the ravening hordes?" Karen made sure the door was locked, then led the way down the hall, and I thought to myself that things already looked a little less lonely.

* * *

Sharing a room with Karen turned out to be much simpler and a lot more fun than sharing one with my little sister had been. Living with her was _easy_ , far easier than I'd ever expected living with a stranger could be. It felt like I'd known her all my life, and somehow she pulled every little scrap of information out of me about my family and life pre-college, often without me realizing it, as she often asked me questions about home that reflected things I didn't remember telling her. Sometimes I would swear she knew things I _hadn't_ told her, but I just shrugged and moved on. She was always so interested, and so caring, and it wasn't like she didn't tell me just as much about her own life, about her parents, about Jemmy and Valancy, the problem-causing Kroginolds and the Clarinade twins, who were apparently catching up to the other kids in some vague, unspecified way, after having been thought to be rather slow.

Then there were the times that she cut herself off in mid-thought, and looked apologetic, making some excuse about it. And the stories she told about where her people came from, that made it sound far more exotic than other immigrant stories I had heard. There was a note in her voice when she spoke of it -- "the old home," as she came to call it, after I got confused about whether Karen was speaking of where she lived now, or where her grandparents and grandparents' grandparents had lived -- a note of such wistful longing that it was almost as if she could see it, as if it were someplace she'd been. And the details of her stories were unbelievably precise, so detailed and vivid, that they seemed more created than remembered.

Our classes went along okay, some harder than others, some hardly seeming worth the time to spend on them, and I started to feel like I really belonged. It all seemed to come easily to Karen, in the couple of classes we shared, but then she'd been schooling at home through the extension service before she ever got to college. It was a sad thing to learn that she'd only be at school for a year; that was all the time it would take for her to qualify for her teaching certificate, and she already had a job lined up, working with Valancy at the very school Karen had grown up in. It didn't sound as if it were big enough to need two teachers, but Karen said she couldn't imagine teaching anywhere else.

"Oh, I'm all sorted!" she said, when the topic came up. "I'm to assist Valancy with the local school, and when she and Jemmy have children, then I'm to take over altogether. Oh, Melodye, and then I'll be an _aunt_!"

"Valancy seems very nice, the way you talk about her," I said, feeling a strange pang.

Karen looked at me, and shook her head, smiling. "She is, _very_ nice. I'm so glad she found us!"

"Found you?"

And there was one of those cut-off moments, where it looked like she was thinking fast to cover some betrayal I couldn't quite catch.

"Yes, you know, she came to teach in the Canyon, and she and Jemmy started twoing--"

I laughed. "You mean dating? I've never heard it said that way before!"

She laughed a little, as well, but hers was more awkward. "Yes, dating -- they fell in love, and got married, and now she's ours!"

That little pang came back every time she spoke of Valancy, which was often, but in some fashion Karen always reassured me.

I wrote letters home several times a week, and it always brightened my day to get a letter back, from my mother, from my little sister Annie, and once from the Sunday school class I'd helped with before I left home. Karen, on the other hand, I never saw put pen to paper to write home, and yet she always seemed to know what was going on and what the latest gossip was. When I asked her about it once, she just flushed a bit and said that she just took care of things like that when I wasn't around, or when she was at the library.

So we were getting along fine, well, in fact, but that didn't stop me from noticing that sometimes things around Karen were a little strange. Like the time I came into the room, and it looked like she was literally holding a handful of sunshine, thick and honey-colored, but I convinced myself it was a trick of the light.

Or the day I came back early from a class, to find Karen trying to catch a bird that had come in through the open window, where a screen needed to be mended. I mean, she must have jumped down from the chair or the desk, the bird in her hands, but when I first opened the door it looked for all the world like she _floated_ down to the ground, without bending a knee. But that would be impossible, wouldn't it?

Little things like that piled up, and things like more blankets appearing when it started to get cold, or cookies that Karen said came from her mother, only there were never any signs of packages opened, or any mention of visitors made. And for the longest time, I thought that it was just my admittedly fanciful mind, trying to find magic where none existed, as I always have, but then I discovered that I wasn't the only one noticing Karen's little oddities.

"I don't know how you can stand to room with her, Melodye, I really don't," Emily said. We were eating dinner in the cafeteria, but Karen hadn't joined us, saying something about meeting a friend in town.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "I love rooming with Karen -- we get along fine!"

Emily mock-shivered a little. "Don't you think there's something... _strange_ about her? You can't tell me you haven't noticed!"

I looked around, and saw a few other girls nod. "I don't know what you mean?" is what I said, but inside, my heart sank, because I was afraid I _did_ know what they meant. At the same time, it beat faster, because if other people had noticed, maybe it wasn't just my imagination, and if that were true...

"She just-- She _knows_ things, things she shouldn't know," Emily said. "Remember when my dog, Chip, was missing last month? I'd just gotten a call from my father that morning, and I ran into her on the way back to my room after lunch, and she said I shouldn't worry, that he'd probably come home, and there's no _way_ she could have known!"

I looked at her, and said calmly, "Hadn't you told anyone about it?"

Emily looked stubborn. "I told Mike, but he lives on the other side of campus, and--"

"But you _did_ tell someone else?"

"Yes, but--"

I shook my head at her. "Isn't it simpler to believe that Mike told someone, who told someone, and that Karen heard it, than to think, what? What is it you're trying to say, that she eavesdropped on your phone call?" I knew that wasn't what she meant, but if they were noticing strange things about Karen, I wanted to make them seem as ordinary as possible.

"No! It's like she--" Emily dropped her voice, looking around. "I swear, sometimes it's like she _reads your mind_. And she can make you feel things, too!"

I remembered my own moments with Karen, when I felt dismally homesick, overwhelmed by school, and I didn't want to do anything, or go anywhere. We'd talk, and I told myself that it was just talking it out that helped, but I had to admit that it felt like _more_ that that. If Karen hadn't been careful... "What's she made you feel?" I asked, casually.

"Well, not me, but Amy Willis -- you know Amy, she works in the Dean's office -- said that she saw Karen talking to Dean Harding, after-- You know, after."

That had been the shock of the previous month, when Dean Harding's young son had been hit by a car driving too fast down their street. "That's not unusual, is it?"

"No, but Amy said that the Dean was... _different_ , after that," Emily said. "And she told Amy that she didn't know what it was about Karen, but that she _made_ her feel better."

"Oh, good heavens, Emily! So Karen has a knack of comforting people. She's very religious, and I find her comforting, too. Saying someone "made" you feel better is just a turn of phrase, not meant literally!"

"That's another thing, though," piped up Hilary Manning. "Have you heard her talk about this "Presence"? Who talks about God like that!"

I sighed. Karen did have a different way of talking about her faith than most of us were used to, but she was so sincere, and she didn't gossip and talk behind people's backs, like these silly gooses. "So now she's strange because she has a different way of talking about things?"

"It's not just that," Robin added. "I was behind her in line the other day, and I'd swear she tripped, but it was like her tray held _itself_ level, and then-- she just wasn't tripping anymore!"

"Now she's strange because she _didn't_ trip--"

But that had set them off, and they each had one or more strange things to mention, like the glass that seemed to slide _into_ her hand (and I remembered that sweater), or coming across her in the library stacks and thinking for a minute she was _floating_ (and I remembered the bird), or coming up the stairs as she was going down, and swearing that her feet just... _skipped_ over steps, not like she jumped, but-- Or the time she came in from the rain, _without a drop on her_ , even though she had no umbrella!

The more I listened, the more I heard _fear_ in their voices, fear of Karen, of things they weren't sure they'd felt and seen, but couldn't quite dismiss, and as a group, they each reinforced the other's doubts, until I couldn't stand it anymore.

"Stop it, all of you!" I raised my voice loud enough that people at the tables around us turned to look. "Just listen to yourselves! Reading minds? Changing peoples feelings? _Floating_ , and moving things without touching them? Thing like that just aren't real! And besides, Robin, didn't Karen go out of her way to spend time with you when your boyfriend broke up with you?"

Robin had the decency to look a little ashamed of herself.

"And you, Hilary, you have no business criticizing how other people believe, it's very rude, and Emily, considering how much help Karen has given you with your studies, you should be ashamed of yourself. You're all a bunch of wretched gossips, and I won't listen to another word." I picked up my tray and left, but I could hear them start talking again, as soon as my back was turned, and it worried me. Whatever the truth of it all, Karen had them nervous, scared, even, and that was never good.

* * *

She almost missed curfew that night. I was lying awake in bed, unable to sleep for worrying about her -- worrying, and wondering. I couldn't quite accept the idea that maybe she really _could_ read minds, and float, and all those things the girls hadn't quite been able to say, only suggest. And I wondered why I wasn't scared, or angry, even, if she'd been reading _my_ mind, or changing my feelings or whatever it was she did when I felt angry or scared or lonely or confused, and then I didn't. Rather, I still _did_ , but somehow... it was better, the poison pulled from the feelings. And I just knew that Karen never hurt anyone, never used any information she gained, however she gained it, to cause trouble or injury. That was one thing about Karen, however strangely she talked about the Presence, and being Called, and suchlike, she _believed_ , and in her belief, that made her obligated to help people, however she could. I just couldn't believe that she was anything but good; she'd certainly been good for me.

And maybe, just _maybe_... she was _magic_. The kind of magic I'd known was out there, that I'd been looking for my whole life. And if she were magic... Well, a whole lot of things made more sense -- if "sense" was a word that even applied.

I remembered, now, a day when I'd been missing my family terribly, and I'd asked Karen if she didn't miss hers, because she certainly never seemed to, nor they her, with her neither sending nor receiving letters. She'd just smiled a bit cryptically and said that they were never very far from her thoughts.

And there were the blankets, and cookies, and how she knew things about home without mail or phone calls or visits, and knew things about other people -- and why she _worried_ so much about other people -- right down to why she'd taken the highest shelves for herself, because she knew she'd have no trouble reaching them. The more I thought, the more excited I became, and I had to keep reminding myself that she'd hidden all this for a reason -- a good reason, probably -- and if she didn't trust me, then... Well, I'd just have to let her know she could.

When the door quietly opened, it was all I could do not to pounce on her and shake her until she told me everything. Instead, I sat up in bed and turned on the light. Karen had her back turned, to shut the door, and when she turned back toward me... her coat _moved_. Given the trend of my thoughts and the fears I'd been exposed to, for a minute I didn't know what to think-- and then a small, furry black head emerged from underneath the cloth.

Everything else I'd been thinking fled when I saw the poor bedraggled thing. "What is _that_!"

"It's a cat, silly. A kitten, really." Karen fished it out from under her jacket, and put it down on her bed, before taking a wrapped-up napkin out of her pocket. "I got the cafe to give me some scraps for it."

Sitting up on the edge of my bed, I peered at the kitten, thin and ragged, and obviously starving. "You can't keep it," I pointed out. "They'll hit the roof if you try and keep a pet."

"I know," she said wistfully. "I'm not planning on keeping him, except overnight. I just couldn't leave him there!"

"Where did you find him?"

"Oh... Just off-campus a ways. He's not very old."

I came over and sat on her bed, and held my fingers out. The kitten sniffed briefly, before turning back to the scraps of his scraps. "What are you going to do with him?"

"I'll take-- send him home. I know some kids that would take good care of him."

She paused, and with my newly heightened awareness of all things strange and Karen, I recognized one of those moments where what was coming wouldn't be the precise truth.

"Someone should be in town early tomorrow who can take him." Her tone was offhand and disarming, and I wondered if kittens could be "sent" as magically as treats and bedding.

She got up and dug in her closet, emerging with a shoe box, and she tossed the contents carelessly to the floor of the closet, replacing them with a old, soft shirt she never wore. The kitten, having finished his meal, promptly curled up and went to sleep, purring like thunder, when she tucked him in it.

I lay back down as Karen got ready for bed, and tried to figure out a way to bring up the subject. How did you get someone to admit that they were... whatever Karen was?

"I had dinner with Emily and Robin and some of the others tonight."

"Oh, yes? And how is Robin doing? Does she seem to be over her heartbreak?"

"I think so, but we didn't really talk about that." She must have heard something in my voice, because she turned around from the mirror.

"Oh?"

Her face was as open and cheerful as ever, and I hated to be the one to change that, but it wasn't something I could ignore. And if a voice inside whispered that I was using this as an excuse, I just didn't listen. It really _was_ something Karen needed to know, either to laugh off, or be wary of. Either way, I was the only one who would do it with love. As I spoke, I looked up at the ceiling, and tried to keep my voice unconcerned, as if I was just sharing information. "We talked about you, a little."

She laughed, and moved to sit down on her bed. "Why would they want to talk about me? I'm not all that interesting."

"They have some crazy idea that there's something strange about you -- that you can do things that other people can't do."

She responded to this with silence, at first. I glanced over, and she was looking over at her desk, but I got the feeling she wasn't really seeing it.

"What kinds of things?"

I took a deep breath. "Things like keeping dry when it rains, sometimes, or picking things up without touching them..."

She looked at me then.

"Things like... reading minds."

I saw the confirmation in her eyes, the almost-not-quite-there wince, the way she looked away again, almost immediately.

"And what do you think," she asked quietly.

"I told them they were a bunch of busybody gossips with too much imagination, and I wasn't going to listen to them."

She smiled at that, and looked at me again. "Thank you, that was very kind. But I asked what you thought, not what you did."

I blinked, and rolled on my side to look at her. For a moment we stayed like that, looking at each other, and I thought about what I thought, and what I would say. "I think... you're one of the best people I've ever known, and that they're all a bunch of empty-headed nitwits."

In a flash, Karen was on her knees by my head, and hugging me so very tight. "You're the best, Melodye. The absolute best, and I was so _very_ lucky to get you as a roommate."

I hugged her back, and that was it. She finally got to her feet, and left for the bath, and I was left wondering whether I'd sufficiently warned her, if she _needed_ warning, and feeling both well-loved, and rather hurt, that she'd apparently decided against trusting me. Could we all be imagining things? If we were, wouldn't Karen have laughed, or been dismissive? Whatever the case, apparently letting her know was enough to ease my anxiety, and by the time she came back to the room, I was sound asleep.

* * *

I don't know what woke me, as normally Karen was as quiet as a mouse. But I woke just in time to see her slip out the door; she must have only waited until she was sure I was asleep. I sat up, yawning, and noticed that the kitten was gone, too. I didn't even take time to dress, beyond shoving my feet in my slippers and pulling on my coat, praying that I wouldn't run into anyone in the halls -- and that Karen would stick to the ground, at least until she was out of sight of the buildings. I don't know how I knew what she was doing, but I did.

I heard the back door closing as I came down the stairs, and managed to just catch sight of her heading across the Quad through the window in the door as I reached it. It didn't seem to occur to her that she might be followed, and I wondered how many times she'd done this, that she felt so secure.

Our building was on the very edge of campus, and there was a park just across the street; in the bright moonlight I saw Karen slip into the trees, but by the time I reached them and made my way in towards a clearing, she was gone. At least, I thought she was, until I heard a faint meow somewhere to my right, and _up_. And there was Karen, easily thirty feet off the ground and rising fast.

I staggered back against a tree and sank down to the ground, realizing that for all my wonderings, I hadn't really _believed_ until I saw clear proof with my own eyes. And yet, I still wasn't afraid. "Afraid" was too small a word for what I felt, watching until Karen disappeared from view. In awe, overwhelmed, so excited I could hardly breathe, those were all true, and... envious. Suddenly I wanted _so_ badly that I was almost sick with it, and anything seemed possible. Anything at all.

I grew cold, sitting on the hard ground, waiting, but I didn't want Karen to be able to deny it again, as she could if I just went back to our room. She'd tell me some story about one of her people driving through before daylight, and meeting him to give him the cat, or dropping it off someplace that someone else would later pick it up. I didn't want another lie -- and I didn't want her to have to lie any more, at least not to _me_.

And the longer I sat, the less my envy weighed on me, until I was left with nothing but thanksgiving that I'd been allowed to witness such a thing. Whatever kind of people Karen came from, they were nothing like my people. It didn't seem likely that what she did was anything that could be taught. It hurt, but I made myself believe it, made myself believe that if she'd just tell me of it, it would be enough.

She didn't return until nearly dawn. I was tucked back a bit in the trees, and I don't think Karen saw me until she almost reached the ground. She stumbled a bit when she did, her eyes on me, not on her feet. I stood up, and she slowly walked to me, a wary, apprehensive look on her face that I didn't like. It had no place there, the frown no place on her brow, the fear no place in her eyes.

When I finally spoke, my voice was a little rough, but I tried to keep the accusation out of it. "I wondered why you never got homesick. You can go see them any time you want, can't you? Maybe even talk to them without seeing them."

She nodded slowly, after a moment. "We can't all do that, but my Gift allows me to. We have a time set aside each week, that they're expecting me to Call."

I could tell by the way she said it that she didn't mean a phone call; some of her words, the way she emphasized them, I could almost see that they were capitalized in her mind. Her People, her Gift, the Calling.

We stood there awkwardly a while longer, more awkward than we'd been since that very first day. "How is the kitten? Does it look like he'll settle in?"

She flashed me a grateful smile. "Oh, yes, the little girl I took him to will be so happy when she wakes up!"

I held out my arm, and she tucked hers through it. I squeezed her arm against my side, and we started walking back, slowly.

"I talked to my parents, Melodye. I was going to take the kitten back, anyway, but I woke them and talked with them about what you said, last night." Her voice was low, almost too low to hear. I didn't say anything, just squeezed her arm again, when she'd been quiet for a while. She slid one hand down and circled my bare wrist with her fingers.

"My-- my parents think that I'm not taking this seriously enough, not truly trying to fit in -- that that's what has made me careless." Her voice sounded a little choked. "They told me that I have to stand more on my own, really _be_ here at school, not like I've been, one foot here, one foot back home. They'll be there if I really need them, but they say I have to stop coming to them so-- Oh, Melodye, Valancy tried to teach me, prepare me, but it's so very much harder living Out-- away from home. Much harder than I expected!"

Somehow, as she spoke out loud, I found myself knowing what she meant, almost hearing Valancy talk to her, seeing how very much she loved Valancy. For a moment, I almost felt jealous -- but only as long as it took me to realize I had always been jealous, of Valancy, of how Karen spoke of her, of her family -- how very much her sense of _belonging_ came through. But quick as that, Karen helped me drain off the poison, and I couldn't wait to meet Valancy, and Jemmy, and Kiah, Lizbeth, Jethro -- all of them. And I knew that I would meet them, and Karen knew that they'd love me as she did.

"When did you know," she asked.

"Know? I don't know _what_ I know, even now, except that you can fly, and move things, and-- I know you're different -- special. You're... magical!" I was embarrassed by the longing in my voice.

That brought forth Karen's ringing laugh. "Oh, not me, nothing so very magical about me!"

"But you can _fly_! And bring things to you without touching them, and--"

"And?" Karen said softly.

I tucked my chin in, and practically muttered into my coat. "You make me feel better. Less alone."

"Do I have to be magical to do that?"

"You know what I mean. You do something... _more_."

She nodded, looking thoughtful. "We call it Sorting. It's kind of... a straightening out of the crooked, a kind of healing, I guess. I can go in and put things in order and help people figure things out."

"Ah. I think... maybe you need to not do that so much. Maybe most people don't notice, when you do it, but... I think that it's the sort of thing that would scare them most."

She nodded again, broodingly. "Mother said something about that, and Valancy actually gave me a stern talking to, about how I shouldn't sort without permission, at least when it came to Outsiders -- unless it was an emergency. I'm just still so new at this, and I hate it when people are hurting, I hate not _doing_ anything," she said passionately.

"I know you do," I said. "You want to help, and you _don't_ want to hurt. You _are_ special, if only because you're so good."

"Is that why you aren't afraid of me?" she asked, and I heard the tentativeness in her voice.

"I'm not afraid of you because you're my friend," I said, and I stopped and put my arms around her tight. We stood that way for a while, and when we pulled back, both our faces were a little red and damp.

"We really should be getting inside," I said. "People will be getting up soon, and me out here in my nightgown!"

Karen laughed, and sniffled a bit, and we made it safely inside without being seen, and sat down on our beds. There wasn't really time enough to get any more sleep before breakfast, but I was so tired.

The whole time I'd been waiting for Karen, I'd been thinking back over those things that had always gone unsaid between us, the things she'd cut off before saying too much. One of them in particular, I wanted to know, because it was about someone so important to Karen. "You said something once, about Valancy, about her "finding" you. You said you just meant her coming to Cougar Canyon, but it was more than that, wasn't it?"

Karen nodded. "Our People... We came from far away, Melodye. Farther than you can imagine."

I felt silly about what I said next, but I had to ask. "You're not... not fairies, or something, right? From the old country?"

She laughed and laughed about that, but it wasn't unkind. "Oh, no, no -- we're not from here, at all. When I say we're from far away, I mean we're not from this planet. This is our second Home. And Valancy, even though she's one of the People, she wasn't raised up in Cougar Canyon. Her parents died in the Crossing, and then the couple that raised her-- Here, this is easier." Karen moved to sit by me, and with a touch of hand to wrist, as quick as a wink I _knew_ Valancy's story, as Karen knew it, as _Valancy_ knew it, as if I'd lived it myself, almost, and I saw a little better, as well, how hard it was for Karen to put aside those parts of herself that made her of the People, watching every natural movement to make sure she did nothing that those from the Outside would see as unnatural, feeling as if she were always dragging her feet on the ground, getting _wet_ when it rained!

And just that easily, we were past story and into talking, although not with our mouths, thoughts exchanged as easily as a squeeze of the hand, and it was just as magical as everything else about Karen and her People, and I felt both blessed and bereft, to experience such a thing, while knowing that as soon as Karen lifted her hand, I would be alone again.

"Never alone, dear one." Karen cupped her hand against one of my cheeks, while pressing a warm kiss on the other. "I shan't let you be alone, you know. You may not be of the People, precisely, but you're still one of Mine. You're still family, to me."

And Karen was right about how her family would welcome me. I spent part of the winter holidays with them, and I quickly learned to love them as my own. And Valancy helped me know what to look for, to help Karen fit in better, keep her from revealing too much to those who wouldn't understand. We went back to school, and the rest of the year flew by, until it was spring, and time for leave-takings and goodbyes. Still, I knew I wouldn't lose Karen entirely; she wouldn't be at the school in the fall, but she would come and see me, when she could.

And I was always welcome at Cougar Canyon.

* * *

"So, that's how I knew what I'd found here, in my very own Bendo, when I came among you," Melodye said. "All broken and hurting, separated from the rest of the People. What horrid, horrible things your portion of the People had to endure, it's no wonder you hid away, hid your glories and your magic."

She stood up and brushed the grass from her skirt. "And now, it's past time for class to have started again! You scallywags distracted me by getting me to talk about myself, but now's an end to that, and a beginning to Composition and Rhetoric!"

She looked up to where some of the older children were playing hide and seek up in the branches above them, and called to them to come down.

"Miss Melodye?" Risa asked.

"Yes, dear?"

"Do you ever feel sad now?" The little girl tucked her hand confidingly into Melodye's larger one.

Melodye squeezed her hand, thinking of how she'd gone lost again, before coming to Bendo. "Oh, don't we all feel a bit sad, now and then?" They started to walk back to the classroom.

"But... are you ever sad that you can't lift, or shield, or any of the things we do?"

Melodye looked down at her solemnly. "Who says I can't?" And while the child blinked at her, she beckoned to Esau, a strong young lad of twelve, and when he reached her side, she took his hand. "All I need is a helping hand -- or two," she said, laughing, and the children laughed with her, lifting her into the sky with them, the rest of the class trailing behind.

As she flew -- and she would always think of it as flying, no matter how often Karen corrected her -- she remembered the first time Karen had taken her up into the air, and the time she took her up through the thunderstorm and above, the energy crackling around them. She couldn't honestly say that she was never wistful that she would never be able to do such things on her own, that she didn't long to be one of those among the human race who were developing new talents, their own Signs and Persuasions, but so much more often than that, she counted her blessings, that she knew of such wonders, and had found a Home for herself, with magic all around, and friendship and love behind every door.

 

 

 


End file.
